Internet of things (IoT) technology holds a great promise for the future of the global communications industry. As the number of connected devices that can establish connectivity with other devices and/or passive objects to exchange data continues to rise steadily, the IoT technology gains widespread proliferation in the information technology industry. With an anticipated projection of over 20 billion devices in the next few years, service providers, network providers and/or cloud providers will observe a net increase in their traffic handling capabilities. This can help the providers enable new IoT services tailored to targeted industry verticals. While there are several ongoing competitive developments in the IoT domain, some key areas where there is an immediate focus include smart agriculture, smart city, transportation and/or utility services, virtual and augmented reality, etc. Low power wide area networking technologies using third generation partnership project (3GPP) defined standards and their ongoing evolution towards fifth generation (5G) seem to provide a solid framework to support such massive IoT initiatives.
Typically, remote areas with limited network coverage or without network coverage cannot leverage these services. Offering IoT services in such regions can create new challenges for network providers.
The above-described background relating to mobility networks is merely intended to provide a contextual overview of some current issues and is not intended to be exhaustive. Other contextual information may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.